philosophicaltherapist

Writer’s Diary: 10,000 hours

Sorry for the hiatus in diary posts. The past few weeks I’ve been working full time (YAY!) which is wonderful news for me, but adjusting to the extra hours of work each week has been difficult on my sleeping patterns. I am naturally a night owl, however, the early bird catches the money worms and I now wake up 3 hours earlier than I did when I was part time. The extra work hours haven’t meant that I don’t have time to write anymore, I still have a couple of hours allocated every day for writing. However, with the lack of quality sleep I have just not been able to write productively. When I used to write 1,000 words per hour, I have been struggling to produce 250 words per hour in my tiredness. I haven’t been meeting all of my writing goals and it has been suggested to me that I should cut back from this blog entirely and focus all my energies on other things in my life like my work. So I thought I would outline my arguments for why I write this blog and what it means for me.

It is a widely held belief that to become a master at anything one needs to sink 10,000 hours of time into practice. With a full time job one clocks up that amount of practice easily in seven years: coincidentally the time expected to complete a doctor of philosophy. There is also the phrase, once used to describe manhood, “jack of all trades, master of one,” and as therapy is my profession, I aspire to master being a therapist. To this end I practice my profession every day through my work, through reading, and research, but also through the articles I write and a book I have in the pipeline. However, while therapy work is a passion of mine, and it is my goal to be a master at therapy as a discipline, there are other things I would like to see myself accomplish in my life. Also, I would like to learn to be competent at many other things: baking, fixing cars, homesteading, home improvements, etc… Continue reading “Writer’s Diary: 10,000 hours”

Thorns – Part 15

Elwin stopped writing and took out a fresh sheet of paper. He started writing out the calculations for how much social debt a wife could pay off if she didn’t work during the pregnancy. He looked at his results. Blinked firmly. Checked his calculations. The thorn in the side of his head throbbed. He stared at the results. His vision grew blurry. He turned the page aside with confusion. He must have made a mistake, he thought, and dismissed the calculations. It was a good offer the Kelites had, they are after all the savours of the world he recalled. It wouldn’t make sense for them to push a debt system that couldn’t be paid back. It was only a matter of time before the Delphorians atoned themselves into salvation. “I need to have more faith,” he told himself and resumed his writing.

While the $20,000 pay out for me was tempting, I just didn’t want to live alone. I remembered the nursemaids from the nursery and I wanted to live with a woman because I imagined they would be just like Agatha. When I arrived here at the apartment complex I was informed that a new wife would be allocated to me in the following month. For my first month as a freeman I explored every nook and cranny of my new apartment and apartment complex. I found that my dorm mate Erian from school whom I hadn’t seen in seven years also lived here. But what fascinated me the most was the women. Continue reading “Thorns – Part 15”

The Monk – Part 14

Suvarin returned with a stretcher with two harnesses that looked remarkably like vests. She was out of her uniform and now dressed in jeans, thick boots, and warm hooded jacket. She looked remarkably unremarkable now; just like a typical young woman one might see on a cold night outside on main street. Oriana shivered for reasons she could not identify, there was something disturbing about how differently Suvarin looked now that she was wearing different clothes. Kent and Suvarin demonstrated the stretcher by putting it on Kent and Kelly first. Paul climbed onto it and was quickly blind folded by Suvarin. Kelly and Oriana were when blind folded. Suvarin and Kent gave the three blind youths the instructions they needed to start walking down one of the tunnels. Kent was in the lead, while Suvarin positioned herself behind Kelly with Oriana at the rear holding onto her backpack. Slowly at first, they moved down into the tunnels, gradually the walkers got used to being blind folded and the pace picked up. Oriana tried to keep track of which direction and how far they had gone but within minutes she gave up as it was obvious they were inside some colossal labyrinth. They just had to put their trust in Kent and Suvarin to keep them safe on their subterranean journey.

Kelly grew tired and Oriana took over helping to carry Paul for a while. Suvarin appeared to know Kent somewhat and was asking him about his writing.

“Writing?” asked Kelly, “What does Kent write?”

“Druids as part of their study need to write a series of parables that highlight key values of our faith in a way that is accessible to other people,” explained Suvarin.

Kelly chuckled, “Oh, so that’s why he told us that strange story about the boy being eaten by dogs on the way here!” Continue reading “The Monk – Part 14”

Thorns – Part 14

He tried thinking about Kylie at first, but the truth was he did not find her attractive at all. He didn’t like that way she slept with so many different men so often. He liked how Edith had kept to herself and hadn’t shown any sign of wantonness. However, he couldn’t put the idea out of his mind that Edith was actually bald and her glorious blonde hair was actually fake. Why should it matter? He chided himself. It shouldn’t actually matter, she still looks the same! Why am I so shallow? He berated himself. He felt Holda’s slimy lips slide onto his shoulder, then the sharp prick of her yellow teeth as they drew his blood.

At that moment he wanted to scream and punch her in the head. Grab a chair and start beating her with it. How dare she do this to me? He went to speak out, but the thorn in his cheek stifled his words. He went to push her away, but the thorn in his knee made him too weak. He tried to tell himself that he mattered, but the thorn in his heart whispered that he didn’t actually matter at all. Continue reading “Thorns – Part 14”

The Monk – Part 13

Oriana arrived back the main chamber to find Paul on the embankment and standing upright. Kelly was busy gesticulating flamboyantly. Realising that Kelly was clearly trying to keep Suvarin distracted for her still Oriana quickly rushed forward to inspect Paul’s knee.

“You can stand on it now?”

Paul explained that Suvarin had given him some medication for the pain and that it was fine to stand on it, just not to carry anything or run for a few days at least.

“You must be some kind of physiotherapist!” exclaimed Oriana.

Suvarin looked at her with an expression of puzzlement on her face, “Has Kent told you about the Salvati?”

“Only that you’re one of the five orders of the Aeshir,” then before she could stop herself, “and that you’re forbidden to carry weapons or do anyone any harm.”

“Oh! Yes, that is true. We are forbidden to carry weapons, but to say that we can’t do anyone any harm is another matter. There are strict rules regarding such matters, yes. It is odd that Kent should tell you that much about us but not about other aspects; such as our primary goals and values.”

“Yes, it is, so, if the Druids are the nerdy, preachy types of your religion, what are the Salvati?” Continue reading “The Monk – Part 13”

Welcome to my Writing Site

I’ve been maintaining this site for a few months now and I am trying to improve the experience for my readers. I have made some changes to the layout that should help people to work their way through the stories in the correct order. In the right-hand column there is a section labelled “Serials”. Here you can just click on the title of a story and get a customised selection of the entries for the work you are interested in reading. This is helpful if you just want to catch up on the latest entries and are looking for them quickly. If you’re want to start a serial from the beginning then I’ve made a couple of pages to help with that: Current Projects and Finished Projects. You can find the links to these pages at the top of the page.

I release updates on a weekly basis. You can see my schedule here.

I share previews of the following week’s stories on Patreon for the $3 subscribers. I only charge Patrons on a Saturday when I make a mayor update. These previews are generally unedited and sometimes major changes will happen to them in the official releases of that particular story so don’t be surprised if there are some changes when they are released.

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoy my writing!

Thorns – Part 13

Holda glared at her husband with her dark little eyes. Elwin wanted to run away, but he was stuck to the floor. Thanks to the generous allocation of food available only for breeding couples, Holda had managed the achievement of being fat in a society where the expense of food meant most people were on rations. She pulled herself up from the chair, the ring of flesh about her middle wobbled as she did this. She moved menacingly closer to Elwin. Her voice was uncharacteristically quiet but every question she asked sounded like an order.

“Where have you been?”

“Just out with Erian.”

“Where were you?”

“At Erian’s apartment,” lied Elwin. He stuttered as he said this, the area around the thorn in near his cheek always hurt when he lied.

“You’re lying, Elwin, now tell me the truth.”

“I was with Erian.”

“I went to Erian’s apartment to look for you. I searched every room, you weren’t there. Now where were you?”

Elwin felt his throat tighten and close over. He gasped several times before he could finally croak the answer out, “I was in the complex next door, in Kylie’s apartment.”

Holda’s fat cheeks flushed red and Elwin knew she was about to start shouting. Continue reading “Thorns – Part 13”

The Monk – Part 12

The man’s face betrayed no emotion, “I see. Well, then I suppose you did the right thing in bringing them here where they would be safe. However, we will have to make special arrangements for their passage out of here. Do you know who the Tyranni are?”

“Nix and Peterson,” Kent answered. Oriana thought she noticed a particular stress on Peterson’s name.

“Ahh, I see. They must have travelled from interstate to be here in this city then.”

“That’s true,” cut in Paul, “I have a photo of their number plate. They came from interstate.”

“I am sorry, my name is Laneg. How do you do, young man?”

“Well, I’m Paul and my knee is badly hurt.”

Instantly Laneg’s expression changed from neutrality to deep concern. “Oh dear, did the Tyranni injure you?”

Paul nodded affirmatively.

“Well then,” Laneg turned to the young women next to him, “Suvarin, could you please take a look at Paul’s leg? See if he is well enough to walk on it.” Continue reading “The Monk – Part 12”

Writer’s Diary: Planning

I almost never write down the plans to my stories. I often find myself getting frustrated with planning to the point that I just give up writing them down so instead I keep them in my head. Spacefall for example was entirely planned out from start to finish in my head. No plans for it were ever written down. The outlines for all ten parts were produced in my head. This is part of the reason there are a number of elements which I cut out of the story half-way through or didn’t put in at all: I just forgot about them. This also why it ended up taking much longer than I anticipated, I grossly underestimated how long it would take to get through certain events in the plot. There are, however, some advantages to not writing down my plans though: I often change my mind about a story and decide there’s a better approach to it and it is easier to put those changes in if I am not committed to a particular storyline yet.

This week though I sat down and planned the next six to eight installments of Thorns. This is because I have a lot a complicated things happening in Thorns at once and it is getting confusing for me to keep track of them all. Each character in Thorns has some pretty significant developments. This alone is difficult for me remember, but details like where each character has their particular thorns are becoming a struggle for me to recall easily. Added to this that I have journal entries from Elwin that take the reading frame of the story into the past. However, these next six to eight parts I have planned are going to finish setting the stage for the major events of the book. Which is proving itself to be longer than I had intended. So far I have just shy of 17,000 words of content for Thorns and the next 8,000 words is going to bring that to 25,000 at least. Continue reading “Writer’s Diary: Planning”

The Horror of Humhyde – Part 6

“What did you tell her, sir?”

“That I might need to murder Otto if he should ever return here,” said Randall flatly.

“Sir Randall, that was most improper of you to say. Even though it may well be true the girl is young and easily frightened by such ideas.”

Randall smiled and looked at Klara warmly. He motioned for her to sit on the stool Ennlin had just vacated.

“Well said, lady Klara, I heed your wisdom and will watch my tongue around such tender minded girls in the future.”

“You do me too much honour, sir; I am merely serving you faithfully.”

“No, you are being honest and speaking your true mind. That is the mark of a lady, and I appreciate that.”

Klara bowed her head courteously.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Tell me what is the situation with the villagers?” Continue reading “The Horror of Humhyde – Part 6”